Poll: All Tied in North Carolina

A new Siena College poll, finds Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump tied at 44 percent. Libertarian Gary Johnson is at 3 percent, 2 percent prefer another candidate and 6 percent are undecided. In the previous Siena College poll in North Carolina, conducted in mid-October, Clinton had a 7-point lead over Trump.

According to Politico, The race is deadlocked despite Hillary’s advantage in early voting, which concluded on Saturday:

Among the 63 percent of poll respondents who have already voted, Clinton has a 9-point lead, 49 percent to 40 percent.

But among Election-Day voters, Trump leads, 52 percent to 35 percent.

The other two major statewide contests are also within the poll’s margin of error.

The Real Clear Politics average for North Carolina: Trump vs. Clinton vs. Johnson has Trump up by 1.7 points. The Trend lines show Trump Surging strongly in November.

Charlie Mahtesian, Senior Politics Editor for Politico, writes that the key to winning North Carolina is Wake County:

There was a time when affluent, well-educated Wake County, home to Raleigh and part of the Research Triangle, was Republican territory in presidential races. But those days appear to be gone — especially with Trump atop the GOP ticket. The Republican nominee’s sweet-spot is white, working class voters without college degrees, which is the opposite of who lives in North Carolina’s second-most populous county. Clinton is likely to roll up the score in Democratic Mecklenburg County (Charlotte), the state’s populous county, so adding a solid winning margin out of Wake County puts her in a decent position to capture the state.

So North Carolina comes down to turn out. Everyone gives Hillary the edge when it comes to getting out the vote. But in the Republican primaries, no one had a ground game better than the Cruz campaign, and we all know how that turned out.